What happens when you grow up without hearing “I love you,” without being held, and without learning what safe, enduring affection feels like?

In this deeply personal solo episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings, I explore the difference between loving someone and knowing how to experience love.

My parents never told me they loved me. My father wrote the words in letters I would not open until decades later, after he died. My mother never said them. I learned touch through violation rather than comfort, and when I became a mother, I had to consciously teach myself how to hug my daughter and say, “I love you.”

For years, I believed love meant providing. I became the financial provider, the problem-solver, the rescuer, and eventually a workaholic driven by survival.

Now, with the help of transformational coach Steve Barton, I am exploring a different idea:

Love can be wisdom.
Love can be trust.
And love can simply be love.

We also talk about menopause, the disappearing bullshit filter, and the challenge of setting boundaries that are loving, direct, and final. Because you can love someone, understand them, forgive them, and still decide they no longer have access to you.

This next chapter is not about performing love.

It is about finally learning what love feels like when it does not require self-abandonment.

What did you perform in order to survive?

Learn more at lisalacy.com

See you at the edge.